Trump and Biden set to square off in highly anticipated first presidential debate
“We won the election,” Trump said, when asked why it was acceptable to choose a new justice who would tilt the court hugely to the right just weeks before the coming election.
Biden hit back that “the American people have the right” to say who will be the next justice on the Supreme Court.
“The election has already started, tens of thousands of people have already voted,” Biden said, calling on Republicans to wait before confirming Barrett until voters have spoken — as Republicans argued should happen in 2016 when then-President Barack Obama nominated Judge Merrick Garland to fill the seat left vacant by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia.
The first debate in Cleveland is moderated by Fox News host Chris Wallace and will span 90 minutes with no commercial breaks. The debate has been divided into six topics: “The Trump and Biden Records,” “The Supreme Court,” “Covid-19,” “The Economy,” “Race and Violence in our Cities” and “The Integrity of the Election,” according to the Commission on Presidential Debates.
The President entered this first of three presidential debates in a far more vulnerable position than in his 2016 match-ups with Hillary Clinton, when he had no presidential record to defend and attempted to rattle the former secretary of state with frequent interruptions and by reeling off one-liners, including the quip in one debate that if he had been in the White House “you’d be in jail.” Many voters have already made up their minds about Trump, giving him poor marks for his handling of both the pandemic and the tension over race relations and police violence this year.
Trump’s strategies to take down the former vice president — including his unproven charges of corruption about Biden’s son Hunter, which he plans to raise on Tuesday — have so far been less effective than those he unfurled on Clinton. The President also may have miscalculated by setting a low bar for Biden Tuesday night as he repeatedly questioned the former vice president’s mental acuity and called him “dumb as a rock.”
One of the few areas where Trump has enjoyed majority approval throughout his presidency has been on the economy. But Biden has begun to target the issue more openly in recent weeks, branding the campaign as a choice between Park Avenue and Scranton, Pennsylvania, drawing a contrast between Trump’s history as a rich real estate mogul and his own birth in the blue-collar city.
Trump is also expected to drill into Biden’s record over his 47 years in politics, arguing that the former vice president would support his “radical” agenda with trillions of dollars in new spending and massive tax hikes that would cut into the bottom line for middle-class American families.
With opinions so hardened by Trump’s polarizing leadership, many Americans will be tuning in to see whether Biden can withstand Trump’s bullying tactics and slashing rhetoric. Biden, who has occasionally lost his cool when confronted about his family on the campaign trail, will attempt to project the image of an elder statesman who would restore calm and competence in the Oval Office.
Trump is looking to score points against Biden by noting the violence and looting that has occurred in some American cities following demonstrations against police violence, which he blames on Democratic mayors and “socialist” politics embraced by Biden and the Democratic Party. Trump has used the argument that he is a “law and order President” to try to address his enormous gap with Biden. In recent polls, Trump has consistently trailed Biden by some 30 points among female voters.
Republicans hope that Trump’s appointment of Barrett, a conservative judge on the 7th US Circuit Court of Appeals, will help win back some female voters who have been exhausted by his personal style and his tweets.
This is a breaking story and will be updated.
